[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “it’s much smarter to air a really good spot fewer times than to air a really bad one tons of times”

If ANYONE has any research as proof of this I’m sure lots of us would like to get our hands on it. I’ve looked, but not recently. Anybody have access to the Harvard Business Review archives? They may have done a study on this.

[Nick Griffin]

Simon –
This reminds me of some of our older threads here on “how long is piece of string?” In other words, there are many, many factors affecting what percentage of a time buy is devoted to production versus airtime.

In single market, and especially smaller market TV, many advertisers are willing to accept almost anything for a spot so the ratio might be 1 to 99. On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the annual grand finale of the US version of the “football” season which is called the Super Bowl. Because the visibility is so high, not to mention airtime costs on the order of US$3 to 4 million for 30 seconds, it’s not unusual for there to be spots that cost 50% or more of the time buy. Then hopefully that is amortized over additional time buys post-Super Bowl, but not always.

The figure I’ve heard often used for the larger regional and smaller national advertisers is 15 to 20% of the time buy going towards production. That is often lowered over time when spots are “renewed” every 13 weeks, meaning that the only on-going production-related cost is the renewal payment the on-camera actors receive as specified by their union contract. Some spots live on for years this way. (As do some actors who are receiving payments for spots they did many years earlier.)

Sorry to ramble, but, to the best of my knowledge, there are really no hard and fast guidelines here in the States. It varies.

[Nick Griffin]

Sam-
I can’t add much better advice than Michael and Jonathan already have. ESPECIALLY the part about passing your contracts past a lawyer (and here’s the key) where you live or where the shoot takes place.

When we get releases signed by individuals we provide US$1 and act like it’s “just paperwork” and no big deal. The only time I’ve had this go bad… REALLY bad, was when one guy refused to sign in front of others and then suddenly no one would sign.

The thing to remember, as I’m reasonably confident a lawyer will confirm for you, although an appearance or model release reads like it is irrevocable it generally isn’t. Your subject can later change his or her mind and demand that they be removed from anything. The release serves as a bluff to make people THINK they’ve granted you all rights.

As to property releases, that’s a whole different animal, a much more serious release and, no doubt, much higher compensation than $1.

Now, how about that part of shooting while you’re on someone else’s paying job? That may be the stickiest issue raised here. That could be covered in the fine print of the agreement you have clients sign when they hire you.

[Nick Griffin]

[Sam Lesante Jr.] “We never wrote any contracts regarding ownership or royalties for the people in the actual shot.

Because of this, can I even sell the clips?”

Ouch. Short answer is probably not. Even if you had a flimsy “model release” from each of them that might be OK for some potential purchasers of stock. But the more serious users would see this lack of clear ownership as risky — meaning what they incorporate your stock into could potentially get yanked.

The other aspect of this is did you generate this in your free time during the shoots or does the footage kinda, maybe actually belong to the client for whom you were shooting at the time? At the least, it’s probably shared ownership between the two of you.

[Nick Griffin]

Fernando is correct that Alex will need some black. A completely reflective surface, ie- chrome, will photograph as white if all it is surrounded by is white. Alex, as well as the still photographer, will need easily moved black flags and panels of varying widths to create the dark accents that will make chrome look like chrome. This will require a lot of trial and error in the beginning.

[Nick Griffin]

Grant-
It may be too late because you’re already too far down that road to turn back, but…

I personally would NEVER encourage that kind of remote client interaction. It’s one thing if they want to sit in on an edit, but to have them attempting to “direct” the edit remotely? Well let’s just say it sends a shiver up my spine. In fact I do my best to avoid clients who want that kind of faux control of everything.

When someone needs to see what’s going on without leaving the comfort of their own office I assemble scenes or sections of the show as they are completed and post them on our Media Batch server. There they can see the clips, mark-up the clips, leave notes and so on.

I don’t mind having clients sit in on an edit in person, mostly because they invariably realize that for them it’s almost as much fun as watching paint dry. And if I really want to bring up the boredom levels I’ll start working on the After Effects parts.

But that’s just me and the technical/industrial/software clients we work for. For that I’m thankful.

[Nick Griffin]

Oh… and I forgot to mention that usually time buys can be bidding wars. The majority of TV buys are attempting to hit a target, ie.- reach X number of people in X to X age range and gender, X number of times in a timeframe of X. Therefore specific programs are often not as important as is hitting this pre-defined target.

On the local level if you HAVE to have a spot in the middle of 60 Minutes or Modern Family and aren’t willing to accept just reaching the same number of people, you are going to pay a steep premium. You also may be able to buy a specific show at a good rate, only to have another buyer come along who is willing to pay more for it and you lose it. TV time is very fluid that way.

One of the things that Todd mentioned in his post was using an outside media buying service. They usually work for a small percentage of the overall budget, but always less than the traditional agency 15%, so if you want to act as an agency you can still make money while having knowledgeable professionals do the dirty work.

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “The usual line that ad agencies spout to their potential clients is that it doesn’t cost a client any more media dollars for an agency to place the media than for the client to do it directly”

I’m reminded of the “3 greatest lies” because one of them invariably is “everybody gets the same deal.” For the most part, nowhere is this less true than with the purchase of media time and space. Yes, in theory if a spot on late night sells for $1,000 and the agency gets its typical 15% agency discount that the advertiser cannot get for themselves, it would be true that it costs no more to go through the agency. But what happens when the TV account exec decides to entice the client directly by helping them set up a “house agency,” thereby earning the 15% WITHOUT going through a “recognized” agency?

The inverse of this is when a large agency is buying a lot of time, for many clients, from a lot of outlets, knows the market(s) extremely well as therefore is able to wield their buying clout. They can get not just better rates, but also any number of sweeteners thrown into the mix, ie.- no charge bonus spots, spots billed at the “run of station” rate which, in reality, are run 6am to 11pm instead of at 3:45am, sponsorship bumpers (“brought to you by”), etc.

[Todd Terry] ” They know a lot more about demographic research and gross ratings points and all that jazz… and are more suitable for our clients who have a substantial media budget to spend or need some really good target-specific advice.”

Todd is right on the money here. Buying advertising time and space is a learned science. It’s the knowledgeable balancing of reach and frequency (the numbers of people watching at the times your spot airs and then the numbers of times your spot needs to be seen by them to sink in). For what it’s worth unless you have a remarkably brilliant breakthrough spot, the required frequency can be fairly high. Media buyers use ratings services to which they subscribe as well as receive detailed, computer-prepared specific proposals from media outlets which cite these highly specific and segmented ratings.

If you’re selling maternity wear your target audience is likely women 18 to 34, probably, but not exclusively in daytime. How do four spots in Ellen compare in cost and reach to twelve spots in a mix of soap operas? Does Morrie Povich have a problem pregnancies theme once a month? If so would it even be possible to generate enough reach with his show to match what you could get with Ellen within the same ad buy budget?

If you’re selling motor oil your target audience would likely be men 18 to 49, probably best reached on weekend sports. Common sense would tell you that a Nascar watcher is more likely to change his own oil than most other men in that demographic, but is it worth paying a premium to be in the last break of the race or in the beginning? Analysis of past quarter hour ratings for Nascar races should show you this.

There’s more to it and I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the idea.

In summary, there’s a LOT more to being in the media buying end of the agency business than most outsiders would ever recognize. It’s kind of like an outsider thinking that all we do in production is turn on a couple of lights and hit the record button on the camera.

(And, for what it’s worth I’ve never watched even a minute of Ellen, Morrie Povich, daytime soap operas or even Nascar. If you want to reach me buy spots in The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.)

[Nick Griffin]

[Mark Suszko] “decline the task and put him or her in contact with an entertainment lawyer; these things are too specialized for a general practitioner.”

Ahh, gee, Mark. You said it in an oh so much more polite way than I was thinking. Just to amplify, experienced representation typically costs less in the long run than does inexperienced. It’s true in law just as it is in film & video production. (Isn’t it our frequent contributor Scott who quotes Red Adair: “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional…”)

[Nick Griffin]

We have a “go bag” of stingers and most of the audio stuff lives in another “go bag” so they’re both ready for field shoots, which is 98% of what we do, at least in video.

As our systems have grown I began by “decorating” the stand that holds the fireplace implements in my office with cables which weren’t in use at the time. (It seemed OK as the fireplace isn’t used much either.) When space ran out on that the decorating continued on a nearby guitar floor stand. (Sorry guitar you have to stay in the case.) Also have a few drawers filled with various like items, ie.- drawer of power supplies and their cables, drawer of USB and Firewire cables, adapters, un-used hubs, etc. So, no. I don’t have a very good system. Certainly NOTHING as organized and sensible as John’s.

The bigger issue is boxes in our storage area overflowing with things like SCSI 1 & 2 cables, cables for monitors long gone, cables for our old network… you get the idea. Junk. Junk that’s hard to throw out when thinking, “Jeezz, I spent a fortune on all this stuff once upon a time.” But should become easy to take to the re-cycling dump when I admit that SCSI isn’t coming back and we’ll need that storage space for what we’re using now when everything starts getting hooked up with Thuderbolt cabling.